Healthcare practices can see this development as an opportunity to get affordable third-party assistance to achieve the compliance
In mid-April 2012, Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a planned rule to postpone the ICD-10 compliance date by a year. In other words, instead of the current October 1, 2013 deadline, it would be October 1, 2014 if the proposed rule is passed. The very day she made the announcement saw the beginning of a 30 day comment phase for the proposal. The comment period ends May 17, 2012.
Offers Time and Hope
If the proposed rule should come into law, it would provide healthcare practices that have not yet made the transition, more time to ready themselves and to completely test their systems. With this extra time, a smooth and harmonized transition among all industry sections can be made possible. If even one industry segment should fail to achieve ICD-10 conformance by whatever the final deadline announced, the consequences would affect all other industry sections. The outcome – denied claims and delayed payments.
Consider Outsourcing
If yours is like many healthcare practices finding it challenging to achieve the required compliance, you can consider outsourcing your medical billing process. You can entrust it with an HIPAA compliant and reputable provider of superior medical billing services. Getting third-party assistance would be better than risking failed compliance and negatively impacting a number of industry segments because of your non-compliance. Your decision to outsource would also benefit you in other ways such as ensuring that your accounts receivable are current and reducing billing process costs considerably.
Julie Clements, OSI’s Vice President of Operations, brings a diverse background in healthcare staffing and a robust six-year tenure as the Director of Sales and Marketing at a prestigious 4-star resort.